The fight raged for hours. Our General Ananias fell fighting like a common soldier, while the Antigonians, fighting without artillery support, suffered even more severely than we.
Then something raised our spirits wonderfully. A squadron of Egyptian ships arrived, bearing not only another shipment of food but also fifteen hundred more soldiers from the Ptolemaios. The soldiers were no sooner off the ships than they were marched across the city to the battle.
The sight of all these fresh men, in spotless armor trimmed with gold, pouring in upon them, cast down the spirits of the Antigonians. They gave ground, then suddenly ran. Many threw away shields and spears. Jeering and cheering, we chased them away from the wall and drew long breaths of exhaustion and relief.
Next morning another truce was called. More than fifty envoys had arrived from Athens and other Greek cities to urge peace upon the contestants. A day's argument in Demetrios' camp, however, showed that the king had not receded from his former demands: to go to war with the Ptolemaios, to give hostages, and to let his forces into the city. And why should we, who had defied him in our darkest hour, yield to him now that we were stronger?
I bathed and slept at home that night. I dreamt I was standing on the wall when it was overthrown by Demetrios' rams. I tried to escape by running along it, but each section toppled under my feet, so that I was tossed about like a leaf in a gale ...
It was my father, in cuirass and helmet, shaking me. "Chares!" he said. "Wake up! They blow the alarum!"
I gathered my weary wits and heard, afar off, the thin sound of trumpets and, fainter yet, the cries of men. Dogs barked furiously all over the city. My mother came in.
"They say the Macedonians are in the city!" she said.
"How can that be?" I mumbled, still more asleep than awake. "We chased them—no, that was two nights ago. What—"
My father brought in my armor. "Get into this, son."
I dressed, armed myself, and went out with my father. The sounds of conflict were louder now. They seemed to come from all directions, from near and far. People flitted about in the dark like ghosts.
At a street corner we found a bearded officer answering questions and directing people. "If you have a place on the walls, go to it," he said. "If you belong to the inactive reserve, muster under your precinct captain in the marketplace. Avoid the theater; that is where the enemy is gathered. The password is 'Helios the Savior.' "
I parted from my father and headed south, giving a wide berth to the area of the theater. On the round towers I found about half my crews. The sounds of battle came more loudly.
I waited, toying with the wild idea of trying to turn Skylla and Charybdis completely around so as to bombard the theater area. But I gave it up as impractical. It would take the rest of the night to move my monsters into position, and then I should only squash a few good Rhodians by wild shots.
The cry of "Ladders!" rang out, close at hand. I led my men in a dash to the first lune. I helped to push over a ladder, while Onas (who had just arrived) split the helmet and skull of an Antigonian who popped up in front of us.
The sounds of battle came, now near, now far. We waited for at least an hour before Bias appeared.
"Chares!" he said. "You're battalion commander now. Appoint somebody to command your battery."
"Why? What's become of Phaon?"
"Dead. He got caught without a shield in the fighting around the theater."
"What shall—" I began, but Bias was gone, leaving me in command of all the catapults on the South Wall.
I strode up and down the wall, asking how many of the engines had full crews and checking supplies of ammunition. As nobody could see to shoot, I told my men to stand by and help the other soldiers beat off attempts to scale the wall.
Several such attempts were made but were not pressed home. I think Demetrios launched them in the hope that all the defenders had left the walls and rushed down into the city to deal with the group in the theater, as indeed a less seasoned and well-organized army of defenders might have done.
Towards morning I made up scratch crews for two unmanned dart throwers, with Onas in command of the pair. We lowered the engines down a stair, found rollers for them, and towed them off towards the theater.
As we neared the theater, we came upon knots of spearmen waiting for daylight to close in upon the enemy. I had to shoo them aside to let my catapults pass. Somebody said:
"Who is this? Chares?"
I recognized the voice of President Damoteles, in armor and leading the reservists. "Yes, sir," I said.
"A good idea, bringing these engines. Between the reservists, and the Ptolemaians, and the Cretans on the roofs, and now this, we ought to smash them."
"How did they get in, sir?"
"Some sentries at the westernmost break in the wall decided that the war was over and they might as well take things easy. The Antigonians cut their throats as they slept, climbed the stairs of the ruined tower, gained the top of the first lune, and thence marched down the stair and into the city. They had reached the theater when the alarum was sounded."
"How many are there?"
"We do not know, but it seems like a couple of thousand. Place your catapults where the Street of Dyers opens on the Square of the Theater."
"Good luck, son!" came my father's voice out of the darkness.
A little farther on we reached the designated spot and set up our dart throwers. When I saw that the general aim was right, the supply of missiles adequate, and a squad of spearmen at hand to protect the pieces, I bid Onas good luck and returned to the South Wall.
As dawn lit the oriental sky, attacks on the walls came with increasing frequency and vigor, while from within the city arose a vast uproar as the Rhodians attacked the Antigonian force in the theater. I could see nothing of this fight except for some of the Cretan archers moving about the roofs of the houses on the near side of the Square of the Theater.
The din kept up for hours. Again and again the Antigonians surged up into the gaps in the outer wall, and again and again the artillery poured balls and darts into their crowding masses while the infantry drove them back with arrow and javelin and thrusting spear. Demetrios had set up two more catapults from the belfry, which sent darts whizzing at us in high arcs, but we had the advantage of being mounted thirty feet higher than they. Our long-range dart throwers drove the unprotected Antigonian crews from their engines. Demetrios' great belfry, which might well have tipped the scale in his favor, stood silent and abandoned.
When the sun stood at the top of its fiery arc, the fighting slackened off. The Antigonians straggled back behind their mantlets or out of range. We wolfed our lunches, expecting them to renew the attack.
The attack did not come. Instead, the uproar from inside the city increased. Wondering if the Antigonians had broken in at some other point, I sent a messenger down towards the theater to find out. When he did not return after half an hour, I appointed a deputy battalion leader and went to see for myself.
The streets were so crowded that it was all I could do to worm my way through. As I got closer to the theater, pools of blood became common. Wounded were helped away; corpses were borne off. The most astonishing sight that met my eyes was six disarmed Antigonians, roped together with their hands tied behind them, being prodded on their way by a spear in the hand of Genetor, my prospective father-in-law.
"Did you capture them all yourself, sir?" I asked.
"Not exactly, Chares, not exactly. To tell the truth, I think Damoteles deems me more useful at this task than at fighting in the front rank."
"Are they broken yet?"
"By no means. Some have given up and many have been slain, but hundreds are still massed in the square, defying us to do our worst. The captain who leads them, an Epeirot named Alkimos, is a very fiend."